How did a small Balkan state become a Cold War power in the electronic field during its socialist period? During the years of late socialism, Bulgaria developed a computer industry that commanded the export market of the Eastern Bloc. Users and states from the Inner German Border to Vladivostok, and many states in the Global South, were equipped with Bulgarian computers, drives, and tools. Developed as a prestige project by a communist party that sought a ‘golden goose’ industrial niche, the industry spawned a far-spanning vision of socialist modernity that touched on all aspects of socialist Bulgaria: from political economy and planning, to labor and gender, to children, literature, and concepts of the human-machine hybrid that was the future. The talk, based on the author’s first book, will try to see what the information age looked like behind the Iron Curtain, and push back against narratives of the failure of socialism to enter the information economy. It shows an Iron Curtain that is far more porous than expected; an Eastern Bloc connected to the Global South through business dealings as well as development; and the impact of such stories on the narrative of 1989 as a convenient end point for the socialist past.

Victor Petrov is a historian of the modern Balkans, with interests in the history of technology & science, the Cold War, utopian thinking and alternative knowledge communities. He is Associate Professor of History at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His first book, Balkan Cyberia: Cold War Computing, Bulgarian Modernization, and the Information Age Behind the Iron Curtain came out with MIT Press in 2023. He is currently pursuing projects in the post-socialist explosion of supernatural phenomena in Bulgaria; and histories of outer space, especially of the 'space commons' approach of the socialist states' Interkosmos program.

If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact us at marinjd@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.